I was browsing over at the Apple website today, and I saw that the iOS 4.2 software update is now available. The update is compatible with iPhone 3G/3GS/4, iPad, and iPod touch 2nd/3rd/4th generations. Apple is promising a ton of new features – enhanced mail, printing with AirPrint, streaming digital content wirelessly to your Apple TV (and to AirPlay-enabled speakers) with AirPlay, and a find text feature in Safari. You’ll be able to play games with friends using the Game Center, rent movies from iTunes, and much more. There’s even the long-anticipated multi-tasking and folders for the iPad. The update is free and is available now from iTunes. (Not all features are available on every version of the supported devices.)
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I really don’t know why people like memory wasting multitasking, I actually jailbroken mine specifically to disable it!
The iPhone 4 has half a gig of memory….what is that memory being used for if you’re not multitasking? You might as well have an iPhone 3G.
Plus, it’s not real multitasking anyway. It’s much more accurate to call it task freezing, with only certain tasks allowed to run in the background (like downloading and music playback).
While I had problems with the iPad’s UI and functionality before this long-awaited update has turned out to be a real disappointment.
On the positive side the task switching seems to work although having to constantly double click the home button to get to the other apps isn’t really all that elegant.
On the downside:
1. We were told there would be printing. Well, yes, I guess so if you buy one of the 11 total printers in existence that handle “AirPrint”. There is no support for printing directly from the device to any other printer…nor can you print through a Mac or Windows machine as previously advertised.
2. Folders – Apple is known for their UIs…the first cut was just stupid with pages and pages of apps. The folder implementation is limiting and poorly thought out. Now, you can create a folder and it will hold up to 20 apps…if you have 21 apps of a certain type I guess you start another folder. Moving apps in and out of a folder is the same slide the puzzle piece game as was used for arranging apps before. Worst of all…there is no way to change the look of a folder so, basically, they all look the same. This means the user has to read folder names. What’s next….a command line where we type in dir? The jailbreak app “categories” was a far, far better implementation.
3. Screen orientation lock – I used this button a lot. The iPad has a nasty habit of rotating the screen…especially if you put it down or want to show someone what you’re looking at. The button was conveniently placed. Now, for some reason the button is a mute switch of some sort…although when I tried it…it didn’t mute anything? The icon with the speaker with the slash showed, but the music I was listening to continued to play. So, how do you get to the orientation lock? After checking the online manual I found that all I have to do is click the home button twice and then swipe to the left and then press an icon. I guess that’s really much easier than just clicking a physical button.
It’s becoming very clear that iOS is going to be kept as an OS for small screens like the iPhone and iPod and that the iPad is going to just get half-baked ports of whatever they’re running on those phones. The four-across icons on the screen, and non-mute switch show little interest at Apple in making the iPad much more than a big iPod Touch/PSP.
Ahh well…hopefully someone will port a decent OS to the iPad because the hardware is pretty good…or one of the Android tablets will prove to be decent…the RIM product looks okay, although I’d like a bigger screen. I think there are a lot of people that bought iPads that wanted more than a big phone.